Vice, Crime, and Poverty traces the untold history of the concept of the underworld and its representations in popular culture. From the Parisian demimonde to Victorian squalor, from the slums of New York to the sewers of Buenos Aires, Dominique Kalifa deciphers the making of an image that has cast an enduring spell on its audience.

Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
Part I: The Advent of the Lower Depths
1. In the Den of Horror
2. Courts of Miracles
3. "Dangerous Classes"
Part II: Scenarios of Society's Underside
4. Empire of Lists
5. The Disguised Prince
6. The Grand Dukes' Tour
7. Poetic Flight
Part III: Ebbing of an Imaginary
8. Slow Eclipse of the Underworld
9. Persistent Shadows
10. Roots of Fascination
Conclusion
Notes
Index

Dominique Kalifa (1957-2020) was professor of history and director of the Center for Nineteenth-Century History at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. His books include The Belle Époque: A Cultural History, Paris and Beyond (Columbia, 2021).
Sarah Maza is Jane Long Professor in the Arts and Sciences and professor of history at Northwestern University.